Is cycling and walking being shafted in the West Midlands? Mayor distances himself from "downgraded" voluntary road safety job ad that has since disappeared

There are growing concerns for walking and cycling growth in the West Midlands this week after a job posting appeared for the region’s road safety commissioner offering less than £5,000 annual salary under a “voluntary” contract.

Richard Parker, the West Midlands mayor, has distanced himself from the advert, posted on the Combined Authority’s website on Friday morning, saying it was launched without his sign-off. The advert has since been altered and marked as a test, not open for applications.

However the job posting and level of pay - or lack of - aligns with concerns raised by the West Midlands’ former Active Travel Commissioner, Adam Tranter, the previous week over a lack of clarity over his successor, and how much seniority the candidate would have. Tranter stepped down when Parker won the Mayoral election.

When quizzed about leaving the post, Tranter told the Active Travel Cafe last week, before the job posting appeared: “During the election campaign for the mayoral elections every candidate was asked if they would reappoint the cycling and walking commissioner and the current mayor did not give a sufficient answer. I don't think he thought about it, I don't think he's as strong on this as the former mayor [Andy Street].

“It's unclear whether the role that they're recruiting for is a road safety commissioner or a cycling and walking commissioner or if it's the same thing.”

Tranter also expressed concerns at the time, at hints the new role(s) would be low-paid or voluntary.

“I can't see a world where you can get a good candidate to unpick an entire system of inertia where we just accept road deaths as inevitable or we don't deliver at the pace that we need to deliver, on effectively a voluntary basis.”

Martin Price, policy lead at campaign group, Better Streets for Birmingham, tweeted the posting on the WMCA jobs board, having heard Parker tell a scrutiny committee the new roles would be advertised by Monday. Price told road.cc he believes the road safety commissioner role would be on a par with the active travel commissioner role, and downgrading the latter would be "devastating" for delivery of cycle routes in the region.

Parker responded on X, saying: “That's not the Walking and Cycling Commissioner role. It says Road Safety Commissioner - which is a new role. But it's also not the finished advert, so I suspect someone has been playing in the system. I've not seen or signed off final remuneration yet.”

Parker added: “I've said publicly several times that I'm keen to change the way the CA [Combined Authority] works and governs to focus on delivery in a way that it hasn't previously - and that takes time. The two new commissioner roles will be part of the Transport Taskforce that reports directly to the WMCA board.” He added the ‘machinery’ needs work, before this can take place.

Price said the posting “aligns with the small honorarium, and the timeline” outlined by Parker in a recent scrutiny meeting, adding he understands the Taskforce will comprise of unpaid members.

“The mayor said ‘I didn’t approve that’ but then why would it be in their HR system if it wasn’t going out at some point soon?” he said.

“Pro rata, at a day a week, £4,750 is £24,000, which is the same as they give their apprentices. I suppose you have to make assumptions because the job description wasn’t there.”

Price added: "It's been 100 days since the region declared a road safety emergency, and five and a half months now since the new mayor has been in place."

Tranter, who was paid £85,000 pro-rata for his role, warned a low-paid or voluntary position would exclude candidates who cannot subsidise their own time. “If you want to find a way to really make sure that your candidate represents the true diversity of the West Midlands and get more women in transport, which I think would be brilliant, it's very unlikely you’ll be able to do that if you're not paying any money. 

“It's probably not moral to do it either, unfortunately.”

He went on to underline the importance of the post being long-term and with sufficient hours, saying: “a lot of the best success I think we had was with politicians that I had spent time building a relationship with; they would hear me out.”

“It sort of relied on me being there all the time and shaking my head when people said ‘could we cut it’, and fighting for that budget because of course there are lots of pressures in overrunning transport schemes.”

Tranter added he had to push back against perceptions “at executive level” that the role was about promoting cycling, an ambassador role, rather than delivering routes that would enable people to get on their bikes. Price said it would be ‘devastating’ to active travel in the region to return to a similar position, pointing to the earlier role of Shanaze Reade, during Andy Street’s early years in office. Reade’s was effectively a zero-hours contract to promote cycling, not deliver cycle routes - something Street was criticised for before he employed Tranter.

A West Midlands Combined Authority spokesperson said they were unable to add anything to Mayor Richard Parker’s comments, adding the roles hadn’t been confirmed and there was no timeline yet on when they would be.